Michigan State eyes Spartan Village for massive redevelopment

officials at Michigan State University are looking at redeveloping the 140-acre site along Harrison Road between Trowbridge and Mt. Hope roads where Spartan Village stands.
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A section of empty apartments in Michigan State University's Spartan Village. University officials are in the planning stages of a redevelopment of the 140 acres of land Spartan Village occupies.(Photo: RJ Wolcott / Lansing State Journal)Buy Photo

EAST LANSING - A skittish woodchuck scampered across a shaded patch of pavement. Picnic tables sat empty in a vast swath of tall grasses.

Spartan Village was once a bustling apartment complex. Shortly before noon on Wednesday, it appeared primed for reclamation by Mother Nature.

Now, officials at Michigan State University are looking at redeveloping the 140-acre site along Harrison Road between Trowbridge and Mt. Hope roads where the complex stands.

Nothing set in stone for future plans at Spartan Village

The university is considering using a portion of the site for a retirement community with up to 180 independent living units and 24 healthcare residences.

Another option is 75 multi-family spaces where McLaren Greater Lansing or MSU employees could live in addition to visiting scholars. In December, McLaren announced the construction of a $450 million hospital near MSU's campus.

Also up for consideration: office space, a hotel, retail space and cultural and recreation spaces.

“It could be up to 50 years in future when the whole thing is developed,” said Kat Cooper, director of communications for Residential and Housing Services.

None of MSU's plans for the Spartan Village site are set in stone. A pair of consulting firms has developed ideas and mockups, which in turn have been pitched to community stakeholders for their thoughts. MSU will also look to form public-private partnerships to accomplish the project.

Ideas are floating out there, but officials haven't gotten into too much depth, said East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows. One issue for him is the tax-exempt nature of the land in question.

"We would not receive tax funds that would help reduce the impact on East Lansing taxpayers for providing fire services for that area," Meadows said.

"There's no question that additional services would be needed in order to serve what would be a large contingent of individuals living in housing areas in the southwest corner of the city of East Lansing."

Some pieces of the puzzle still not in place

To fully shut down Spartan Village, MSU needs to find a new place for visiting scholars as well as newly arrived faculty and staff to live.

At its peak, some 1,500 units were available at Spartan Village. Today, there are approximately 350 units in active use, Cooper said.

Most people living in Spartan Village today are visiting scholars, “people who come to the university from around the nation to do research,” Cooper said.

They stay for less than a year – as little as three months in some instances – conducting experiments at MSU’s cyclotron laboratory or doing post-doctorate work.

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Michigan State University's Spartan Village once had 1,500 apartment units. Today, approximately 350 units are active and maintained. The rest have been winterized and shuttered.(Photo: RJ Wolcott / Lansing State Journal)

Graduate students currently live there

Some current residents are graduate students. They must demonstrate financial need to live there.

MSU opened 1855 Place last year as a partial replacement for Spartan Village. It will ultimately hold more than 420 new student housing units. The university's current plans don’t call for adding student housing, a market Cooper described as saturated.

While that may be the case for undergraduate students who can afford pricier options close to campus, it isn’t so for many graduate students working at MSU, said Sara Bijani, president of the Graduate Employee Union. That’s particularly true for people who bring their families with them from another state or country.

“The average graduate student working for the university could be paying 50% or more of their monthly income toward housing costs,” Bijani said.

1855 Place isn’t nearly as affordable as Spartan Village, she added, and it lacks the peace and quiet graduate students crave. Monthly rent at Spartan Village ranges from $656 to $864 per unit, according to the website. At 1855 Place, rates range from $785 per person for a four-bedroom efficiency unit to $995 for a studio apartment.

This past school year, the graduate employee union allocated a total of $4,000 for solidarity grants for its members. Money goes toward students who are facing severe hardships. The union received more than $18,000 in requests, and approximately half of the requests approved were for housing-related emergencies.

“I think the usage of this emergency fund does help to illustrate the problem of lack of access to affordable housing in the area and the disruptive impact high-cost housing can have on graduate students,” Bijani wrote in an email.

Sapna Naik, a Ph.D. student at MSU, opted to go back to Spartan Village this past school year after spending a little more than a month living at 1855 Place. It was too expensive, and she knew of no other graduate students living there.

She's among the graduate students petitioning MSU to create a pool of money that graduate students of economic need could use to find alternative housing near to campus.

"It would be beneficial for the university to say there is an option for grad students to have more affordable housing," Naik said.

With her on-campus obligations over and in the last year of her program, Naik plans to live back home in Texas this coming school year.

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Built in the 1950s and 1960s, Spartan Village once boasted 1500 apartments for married students for visiting faculty. Today, only about 350 units are actively used.(Photo: RJ Wolcott / Lansing State Journal)

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr.